


Running After You

by PizzaMan



Series: After You [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (theyre johns), Angst, BAMF John Watson, Hopeful Ending, Pining John, Pining Sherlock, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Self-Esteem Issues, Sherlock in Siberia, self-sacrificing john watson, talks about sherlocks wounds (non-graphic), talks about torture (non-graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PizzaMan/pseuds/PizzaMan
Summary: Sequel to "Jumping After You". Snapshots of what happened during the time away.





	Running After You

**Author's Note:**

> This fic does mention Sherlock being tortured (nothing graphic) as well his wounds. I would recommend that you read the first fic in this series. Enjoy :)

John woke quickly. It was dark and his vision was blurry. Had he died? That seemed like the most reasonable explanation. It looked that there was a person sitting in front of him. Something on their face was moving - their mouth. His senses, as well as his memory, came zooming back into focus. 

Sherlock was sitting across from him, asking if he was alright. They were on a plane. There wasn’t any sunlight. Mycroft was the last person he talked to. And Sherlock wasn’t dead.

“Bastard,” John croaked out. “You bloody bastard!”

“Yes, so, you are alright. You need to drink water. I’m sure whatever Mycroft gave you-”

“I don’t give a damn what Mycroft gave me! You died! You made me watch you die! Don’t you think I had seen enough?! You told me to keep my eyes on you! I saw you fall, Sherlock, and I held you bloody wrist to find some sign of life. Nothing. I’m just talking to air, aren’t, I? I’m going crazy.” 

“No, not crazy. I’m real. I understand that what I didn’t was Not Good and what I made you watch was a lot more than a Bit Not Good. The truth is, I need your help.”

John searched his friend’s face and was fully aware that there were tears streaming down his face. He also knew that Sherlock really was in desperate need of his help. John made the only choice that made sense.

“Alright, but you have to tell me everything. And I mean everything, Sherlock. I need to be able to trust you.”

Sherlock readily nodded his agreement.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock was dragged on his back on the way to someplace. He didn’t know where. He was cold, dirt and rocks made their way into his open wounds, and he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. Or maybe days. He wasn’t sure anymore.

They (whoever  _ they _ are) chained him up and he waited for the questions and the crack of a whip. He was not disappointed.

There was a break. Sherlock was given water and then left alone to stare at the rest of the cup set in front of him. 

He didn’t know how long it was before the woman interrogating him came back. His eyes locked onto the person that was silently following behind her. His lower face was covered (like everyone else that he’d seen here) and Sherlock internally winced when he saw John pick up an instrument of pain, carefully, before putting it back down on the table.

And then Sherlock blinked. Very slowly.

No, that wasn’t John. John wasn’t here. He had left him back in Romania. John also didn’t know Russian, he told himself as John started conversing with his captor. 

The new man, Not John, flinched as the whip came down on Sherlock’s back. And Sherlock didn’t dare hope.

It was only as Sherlock fell to the dirt and blood ridden floor, his chains giving away, he let himself believe that he was being carried out by John. He let himself believe that he was going to make it out alive and that it was John who was sent to rescue him.

He let himself think that John loved him a little more than a friend.

And that’s what he let himself believe as his world went white.

 

Sherlock was an absolute idiot, John decided. An utter cock. It was a miracle they got this far. What he would have done without John, he didn’t know. What he did know was that these torture wounds would have to be treated by a specialist. He also knew that Sherlock wouldn’t let that happen. 

John looked down at Sherlock in his arms, a cascade of emotions bursting at the broken man before him. He knew, lost hope a long time ago, that Sherlock could never return what John felt for him. He was alright with that, he really was. He made his peace with it. He could love while being unloved. It wasn’t anything new. A friendship like the one they had wouldn’t be worse or better, just different. He could survive with what he had.

It was a world without Sherlock that he couldn’t survive. Even if Sherlock left his life, as long as he was still out there, somewhere, John could keep living. It would be a half-life, he knew, but it would be a life. Now, he wondered, what kind of life he was living.

It was this thought that propelled him to text the only number on their phone.

He knew what had to be done. It was the only thing that was keeping Sherlock from living his life. The life that he gave up to save his friends. John may be a friend of Sherlock Holmes, but he wasn’t the only one.

But in the end, John Watson didn’t ever matter, not really. He was good for only two things: killing some and saving others.

He decided then that he was the one who was going to end it. He was going to kill Moran, even if it meant his own death. Because his death meant even less than his life.

 

* * *

 

John was slow. Mycroft was slower still. Sherlock was the slowest of all three of them.

It was a physically broken John that they found next to the dead body of Moran. John had thought he died. Almost wished he was dieing when he closed his eyes. He didn’t think that the sound of the chopper meant he was saved. Meant that he could live.

It was a tired and beaten up Mycroft that found out what John’s goals were. And how he was to obtain them. He helped him, of course, without letting his brother know. Sherlock needed to heal, and he wasn’t in any state to run after John.

Sherlock was broken and tired and beaten up. Physically and mentally. Two months in a hospital, no answers about John from Mycroft, and no TV. No phone, either. When he finally,  _ finally _ realised what was going on, what Mycroft had been doing, he broke out of the hospital. He was bored. He was worried. His stomach was twisted up and his heart felt ill. His injuries weren’t healed yet but he made it. He made it in time to know where John was. He ran after the plain, black chopper. He fell on his knees by John’s side and helped him back up. 

Everything had to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I'll add to this series but I hope to. Let me know if you want to see more :) Thanks for reading!


End file.
